From: Tom Schneider Message-ID: To: philjohn@uclink.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: TD Schneiders Unanswered Question to You Content-Length: 5288 Status: X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 X-UIDL: 3a2e81a600000898 Dr. Johnson: Thank you for your response. | I have no recollection of ever having heard from you before As indicated on the web page I asked the question at the end of one of your talks. I did not identify myself at that time, but I might note that many people came up to me afterwards to thank me for asking the question, which you were unable to answer. You did not follow up at that time. When a scientist is challenged by a serious question they generally think carefully about it and prepare a careful defense to the question for future reference. If they do not prepare a defense, then their position is substantially weakened when the question is raised again. You have not answered my original question about how "kinds" are to be determined using sequence data although you have now had plenty of time to research the topic.. | I think your basic point is: what do I say about genetic similarities? That is a vague approximation to the original precise question: How are the 'kinds' (dogs versus cats etc) proposed by creationists such as yourself are to be determined now that we have sequence data. Your claim was that the 'kinds' are distinguishable. If you cannot rigorously answer this question, you cannot honestly use the concept of 'kind' to argue that they were always separated. | I think they show that genes are over-rated, Your response implies that you did not do any DNA sequence research in the past year, although the entire sequence of humans and other organisms is nearly finished and this is therefore a most exciting time for doing such research. Given the vast knowledge of genetics we already possess and the rapid improvements in molecular biology, significant similarities and differences are being be found in the sequences. Are you saying that your creationist philosophy predicts that understanding the DNA sequences and the body structures that result from them will never explain such things as opposable thumbs, upright posture, large brains, language and cultural interactions? If so, what substantial, *testable* hypothesis do you propose instead of genes and environment to explain biological effects? | and that comparison of genes | fails to explain the differences between animals - e.g., why humans are not | a whole lot more like apes (or mice, etc.), than they are. Why then does whole-genome comparison of genes explain the differences between various bacterial species? For example, why is it that parasitic species have fewer genes? Also, are humans animals as you suggest? Finally, please give me a primary reference that demonstrates your claim. I do not think you can do this because it is too early. Not knowing an answer is VERY different from an intrinsic failure to explain something! In many cases we just don't know. THIS IS NOT A FAILURE. For example, your initial answer that 'more research is needed' was not a failure. However, if you don't back up your response with support for 'kinds' then your hypothesis would generally be considered to fail. | For explanation I refer you to recent articles by Tom Bethell in First | Things. You can find the links easily. Apparently you mean http://www.firstthings.com/. Their search engine is useless because it returns a huge number of irrelevant hits, such as "the", "ethel", "ether" and "hell" for "Bethell". What are the URLs of the articles? If you mean http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0101/articles/bethell.html then where is the fundamental molecular biology that answers my question? Sociologists haven't gotten there yet, although relevant reports are starting to come in. Bethell seems to have missed the mass of genetic data that already exists. MANY people (scientists) have postulated the existence of genes. They would dream up a gene and set up a genetic screen or better a selection and in many cases they *found* the genes. So Bethell is way off the mark to complain that hypothesized genes can't be found. A relevant example is the behavior-controlling genes that have been found in drosophila. For ethical reasons, it is harder to find behavioral genes in humans but the equivalent genes are already being mapped between these two species. Furthermore, genetic diseases open a door to understanding, and disease effects in humans of behavior controlling genes in drosophila (for example) will surely soon be revealed (or have been, the literature is moving quickly these days). In the meantime you have a chance to make precise predictions based on your creationist stance. What exactly are you predicting? By saying that genes are 'over-rated' you seem to imply that genes for behavior of humans will not be found. Bethell is wrong about testability. The sociologists are making *testable* predictions when they conjecture that a gene exists. Some of these will be found and some won't. We know that this is reasonable from our experience with lab organisms such as bacteria and yeast. By contrast, Bethell is just complaining and not making any *testable* predictions. So far, for a year and a half, you have avoided the issue of how to use the DNA sequences of organisms determine whether or not they are the same 'kind'. It's a simple question that should be easy to answer. Dr. Thomas Schneider (note: this message was sent just before Thu Jul 5 12:44:59 EDT 2001)